Mjx

Short answer: YES. Monster. I'm sharpening my pitchfork and... repitching my torch (?), so I won't look out of place in the raging mob storming your home. On the other hand, since this was originally a dish of the common people, I really doubt that any hard and fast rules applied, they just worked with what they had (but I confess that If I was offered cassoulet, I'd be disappointed to not find duck in it; you might want to let people know duck will not be present).

ugh. That sounds awful! I like acai in things, it adds a blueberry-esque flavor that I find very agreeable...But then i've never gotten sick from it! Were there any other unsual ingredients in the juices? Something else that may have been the puke factor? I haven't heard of them causing nausea before...guess it might just be an allergy. . . . . The first time I had it it was just açaí, not a blend; it tasted a little flat, but otherwise pleasant, and I was looking forward to getting it home, adding a squeeze of lemon, and finishing it off. Which did not happen. I've had a variety of different blended versions, and none agreed with me; at this point, I'm suspecting a bit of a psychological effect, however. It would be interesting to have someone slip some into some juice mix I'm having, without my knowing it, to get the real deal (since the worse that could happen would be kind of gross, but not fatal). Preferably in an easily-cleaned area. I still wish they didn't add this stuff to everything!

Ostrich jerky, too... . Actually that is (or at least can be) really good! Salmon jerky has this weird tannic effect, and is just miserable.

I was curious about whether keeping the bread under vacuum would delay staling (upthread). I know that staling has to do with starch retrogradation (I need to check McGee for the details), and I had this idea that vacuum-packing the bread might slow that; vacuum-packing the bread in a bag squished it, so a box seemed like it might be interesting to play about with. I don't know what the reduction in air pressure is, but you can see the bread visibly expand when the pump starts running; any idea whether a 3% reduction would do that? At any rate, whether it was keeping the bread under vacuum, or magic pixies humouring my tinkering, the bread did not stale over the course of 6 days (under ordinary conditions, there is noticeable staling after 3 days). Having to reseal is not a huge deal, it takes about a minute, and it's done.

I ended up getting this (thanks, Jens Axel!): In terms of keeping bread fresh, there has been no detectable staling or drying since the loaf was baked last Sunday, so using a vacum box to store bread works well. This wasn't designed specifically as a bread box, so it has a few drawbacks, as such: The minimum internal dimensions are 29×17 cm (6 5/8"×11 3/8"), a bit short for the loaf pan I use, and if you get a lot of rise, as I a did with this loaf, the loaf needs to be stored on its side to fit. If I was redesigning this as a bread box, I'd increase at least the length, and I'd make the entire thing of the same white plastic (polycarbonate?) as the lid, so it could be kept on the counter without allowing much light/heat in.

My experiences were not described as 'proof' of anything. However, that some people, under some conditions, react atypically to certain substances at certain concentrations is true of pretty much any highly concentrated (e.g. crystallized) substance. I've had this particular reaction only when I've ingested a significant quantity of savoury food on a completely empty stomach. It hasn't been restricted to Chinese, or even Asian food (once it was fries and gravy), and it's never been expected: Tripping your face off is sort of distracting to dinner conversation, so I generally eat a couple of Wasa or something before dining out. The effect is brief (possibly 45 minutes) and not unpleasant, so I can't describe it as a concern; I have no particular problem with the use of modest amounts of MSG in food, and don't go out of my way to avoid it; I have some in the kitchen. It might not be MSG, or it might be glutamates in general having this effect (or something completely different, although nothing comes to mind; any ideas?), but this has happened out of the blue on about half a dozen occasions; something is going on, although I can't say I'm worried about it. Don't know about anyone, but I keep a packet of the stuff about, so anyone is welcome to have a whack at it!

Not sure whether this counts as a trend, but the term 'food porn' has been done to death. It might have been mildly amusing/clever the first time someone said it, but now it's about as embarrassing as someone using baby-talk words to describe 'indelicate' body part/functions. Açaí fruit/berries/whatever these things are in every bloody thing. I'm generally up for anything new in the fruit department, even if it carries a high risk of health, and got a bottle of the juice, but I'd got a little way into it when had to hurriedly find a quiet corner to be sick in. It wasn't the flavour, which was okay, it just disagreed with me horribly. I tried another brand, thinking I might just have got a bad batch, and was only violently nauseated. And now several of my favourite juices have had this wretched thing added to it. Not happy.

Any 'Irish cream' liqueur... that beige colour, like spackle. Blech. Cheap, cruel, soul-destroying sweets that look pretty, but taste of nothing. Salmon jerky.

I'd have to say the answer is here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143967-your-most-disliked-trend-in-the-food-industry/ As soon as as a trend is recognized as such, the 'scene makers' have already moved on, and it's really pretty much over, so knowing about trends is only good if you want to avoid them. Go with what you honestly appreciate, and sooner or later, it will be on trend [again], whether it involves eating uncooked food out of a hole in the dirt with your bare hands, the most recherché and refined dishes, or any and everything in between.

I'm trying desperately to remember what my (not anti-MSG) physiology professor told me when I recounted my reaction to MSG. Many reference works were opened, many tables and diagrams shown, but the gist of it was that, in general, most people are apparently not unusually sensitive to 'moderate' amounts of MSG, most of the time, under most circumstances. Which is vague, but the take-away was that occasional MSG consumption is harmless. I've been in restaurants where, as I waited for my takeaway, I saw MSG shaken over the cooking food with abandon, and at those levels, it wouldn't be too surprising if some people showed some sort of physical reaction. If I eat something MSG-heavy on a completely empty stomach, I tend to hallucinate (this is actually kind of entertaining, my main concern being to look normal and not giggle, as time accelerates around me and I become able to feel the molecular structures of objects), which as far as I can remember is probably due to the behaviour some neurotransmittor, but I'd be lying if I said I recalled any details of a discussion I had over a decade ago. My heart rate may go up too, but not surprisingly, I haven't noticed one way or the other. If I put something else in my stomach before I eat something containing MSG, I'm fine. My real objection to MSG is that it tends to make things seem so damn tasty (including things I might normally find unappealing), I sometimes lose my grip and eat something along the lines of an entire tube of Pringles, even though reason is screaming in my ear that this is a terrible idea, and I will feel utterly disgusting afterwards

Any time! By the way, there's an interesting discussion of the effects of salt (including that of tiny amounts) going on in the Salt in cocktails topic.

One of the best ways to not have to over-sweeten would be to skip the citric acid, since making something [even] more sour increases the need for sweetness to balance that out, and lemon juice has plenty of flavour of its own (limes are even better). You could age the juice briefly with a strip of bruised citrus peel, to increase the aroma. I'd definitely add a tiny pinch of salt, which has a substantial effect on enhancing the flavour.

I always make a beeline for BrewPub; both the pub and the restaurant are excellent, but if you're specifically interested in Nordic ingredients, go with the restaurant (the pub's focus is on universal pub classics).

There was a fairly recent discussion that might be a useful starting point, here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/142094-where-to-eat-in-austin-tx/?hl=%2Baustin (e.g. post #13).

Free dessert? I don't know, you'd probably be stuck paying for that, but it might be worth it for the goodwill. Something like 'I'm really sorry, but your order didn't go in when it should have done,' is vague enough to not make things more awkward if the details (i.e. you forgot) do come out, but you might be better off being up front with them about what really happened. I think most people can understand, and are essentially reasonable about human error, but become [even more] grumpy if they get to thinking their server is not telling the truth.

I've had pretty good results storing baked good for a couple of days, first wrapping them in a clean dish towel (the plain weave sort), then storing them in a new plastic bag with the air sucked out (vacuum might work even better).

Some context for that would have been nice, since my point was that if your're coming from the EU, then absence of any sort of organized action by US wait-staff is puzzling. I'll add the caveat that this applies to those who are coming from the EU, and have no clue as to what it's like to work a low-paid job in the US. I personally have no problem wrapping my head around this, since I know how that kind of thing plays out in the US, and you're right, it isn't an option, which I said in a previous post. By the way, last time we all had this jolly chat about this topic, you mentioned a German guidebook that advised visitors to not even bother tipping, since it couldn't be enforced. What was the title of that, and when was it published? It's pretty disturbing to know such a book is around, but I'm still curious about it.

Echoing pastrygirl, what's being boring (just to establish a baseline for any suggestions)?

You have it partly right. As I said, I'm American, virtually my entire family still lives in the US, so I'm not loathe to visit (I can't really call myself a visitor, either), but I don't like dining out in the US. I don't like dining out in the US, because it is one of the few situations where I actually feel like an 'ugly American' on whose whim someone's hourly wage hangs (and now understand why my grandafather made a practice of tipping before the meal). When I waited tables in the US, I probably experienced the most miserable version of that job. Plus, until then, I had no idea that there were real jobs that paid less then minimum wage. When I dine out, I know that I'm being served by people who are being paid less than minimum wage, and they're counting on tips to make a decent living. I know that their being tipped enough to make a living rests solely on the decisions of the diners, and since my own experience of this job was not great, I feel bad for the times they may have been/may be stiffed. Because of what I know, I virtually always tip 20%, and if I'm dining with people who are not accustomed to tipping, I do whatever possible to ensure that they tip; if I have doubts about my having succeeded, I just slip around and tip the waiter myself, and explain that I'm not sure the party I'm with quite gets the tipping idea. When I dine at a restaurant where waiters rely on tips, I can't escape the feeling that I'm somehow endorsing and supporting this system (this is the part that makes me uncomfortable to the extent of no longer being able to enjoy dining out in the US). Not tipping only hurts wait-staff, and has zero impact on changing the system, and has never been something I've even considered. I don't think I ever said 'Why don't the servers just rise up and demand better'; I admit to not having looked back at everything I've written, but know that's not an effective option.

What?! That wasn't at all what I was trying to say at all! How could that be the takeaway?! How is this condescending?! Your reading of this strikes me as a the most wilful and dishonest misinterpretation you were able to frame. I was trying to explain that because I was taught specifically to not put fingers in people's eyes, the fact that someone might do so was so impossible to to me it, could not compute. I give an example of something incompehensible causing brain freeze, and you read it as a metaphor for something about international relations?! It's as though the hyphenated term leaped out at you, and you saw nothing else, read no further, read nothing else that I've written. It was the only example that came to mind. I feel like I'm supposed to apologize for the fact that it did not occur in an elegant, urban setting. Fine: I apologize. I'm sorry, because I had no intention of offending you or anybody else. I'm sorry it came off the way it did. But I don't understand how it happened (even if you wanted it to be a metaphor, the farm is in the EU, and the American in this incident got the dirty finger in the eye so..?). All I was saying was that the two frames of reference regarding wages are different enough on this point that they don't make sense to each other, they don't compute. I know the system doesn't work, and that tipping is crucial. I know this because I'm American and I worked at a restaurant for tips, I found it appalling. Why are you not getting that I understand this perfectly well? I spent a winter working at a restaurant, a winter with no electricity, and living on instant mash made with hot water from the tap. It was terrifying. Why are you not getting that, because I know perfectly well what the underpinnings of the system are, I routinely tip 20% unless the server stabs me, or something?! That I think paying wait-staff a living wage would be a great idea? That I spend a fair amount of time trying to convince people from the EU to tip, regardless of whether they approve? I've already said that the system feels exploitive, took some heat for that, in fact. Did you decide that by 'exploitive' I meant 'exploitive of the people tipping'..? Is that it? Because that's not what I mean: I mean 'exploitive of people being tipped', and I didn't specify, because to me, it seems self-evident. In the EU, I am frustrated by my inability to explain the fact that the system of paying sub-minimum wages really exists, and is apparently currently too monolithic to change. I tried to explain the reason I think I have been unable to successfully explain this. But I have no trouble understanding it at all.

It's a fair question, and all I can come up with is that the neccesity of tipping is so far removed from the situation in the EU and UK that it is literally not comprehensible. It isn't about morality. I don't even know how to explain this, but the best way I can think of trying to, is describing something compltely unrelated: I was visiting a friend on a farm, and we'd spent the mroning doing farm-related things that involved dirt, butchering some chickens, dung shovelling, and finally, splitting wood. During the last activity, the splitter spat out a piece of bark that settled not-very-coveniently in my eye. I took off my glasses, cupped my hand over my eye, being careful to not let it actually touch my eye, and did some intensive and ineffective blinking. My friend came over, and asked to take a look. I let her take a look. Thenshe reached for my face, put her finger in my eye, and tried to remove the bark. I was literally so unable to process the idea that someone would put a dirt/dung/chicken-bodily-fluid-covered finger into a living eye that my brain rejected the possiblity, and failed to function. I didn't even close my eyes. I simply could not grasp that such a thing could be. Faced with the apparently impossible, my capacity to reason broke down utterly. This can't be happening, it isn't happening. I'm still not able to grasp how this happened, simpy because it makes aboslutely no sense to me The frames of reference on either side of the Atlantic are so different, comprehension is apparently impossble. I know that the wage situation is what it is, and that not tipping only hurts waitstaff and fails utterly as a statement, but the last part especially I've found impossible to communicate.

No no, that's fine, was just a bit concerned that I wasn't clear about the issue not being about the tracts! So you too had to deal with parents who apparently handed their children over to be raised by wolves?! I thought that was some sort of recent phenomenon that was the result of the 'never crush your children by saying NO' school of child-rearing

But I had no problem with the religious tracts as such, my problem was that they were usually left instead of a financial tip, and neither my landlord nor supermarkets accepted those as currency. I just couldn't see why someone who spent eleven bucks on dinner couldn't manage even a dollar as a tip. When I first went off to university, the town where I ended up was tiny, and the restaurant was pretty much the only place I was considered old enough to work. So, absolutely, no force was involved in my getting a job there, but my options at the beginning were few; as soon as more reliable ones showed up, I went after them. I think – based on the many discussions I've had about this with people from various EU countries – that what is difficult to wrap one's head around is the fact that wait-staff nationwide hasn't done anything to change the status quo. This might because of the ease with which you can be replaced, although I'm not at all certain; still, for every place where waiters make great tips, there's some little diner where the tips are meagre, or even often absent.

The important point I made was that as things stand now in the US, people should tip waitstaff, since not tipping won't have any effect on changing tipping culture, and the one who is harmed is the person who took care of them. Mentioning having received religious material in lieu of a monetary tip on a number of occasions is not, and certainly was not intended as a swipe at any religion.

'Michaela is uncomfortable with cultural differences between countries'...? I was born in NYC, and spent a good chunk of my life there, so US culture is not what I can call 'another culture'. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. My guess is that you've never waited tables in the US. I have. Social pressure to tip properly? Please. I've had people leave me religious tracts as tips. I'm sure there are places where waiting tables is a great job, but in many others, it sucks, and the place I worked sure did. The iffiness of tipping on top of this made it remarkably awful. And it is my experience of waiting tables, of working in this environment, not 'provincial absolutism', which underpins my feelings that the basic tipping construct can easily become exploitive. My main points were not the ones you identified as such, but that A) it is difficult for the two sides of this debate to understand one another, and B) that regardless of whether or not you believe tipping culture to be acceptable, you should tip your server in the US (i.e. the things I made a point of emphasizing at the beginning and end of my post). You don't like 'gambling'? Fair enough, let's call it 'a gamble'. And it is: there's often no guarantee that you'll earn a cent on any given night. Again, I'm basing this conclusion on having actually worked for tips. In the first place, a tip is 'something monetary' (except when it's a religious tract, or a slightly battered 'Jesus Saves' sticker). In the second place, if norms were enough ensure consistently adequate tipping, this entire topic wouldn't even be taking place, since virtually all tips would be at least acceptable, and there wouldn't really be anything to debate. I can't see that my admitted discomfort with the tipping paradigm is any sort of character indictment; I think everyone should be paid a living wage, which hardly seems culturally insensitive or 'seeing others as less than'.